Scottish Budget: Housing the number one priority if the Scottish Government gets more money

The 2024/25 housing budget was slashed by more than £200 million by the Scottish Government

Finance secretary Shona Robison says housing will be the number one priority if the Scottish Government is able to find any extra money.

Last month the Government slashed its housing budget for 2024/25 by more than £200 million, including cutting more than half of the money set aside for building new homes.

This comes after three councils all declared housing emergencies at the end of 2023, including in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

A view of Victorian tenement housing in the West End of Edinburgh, Morningside. Picture: Getty Images

Ms Robison blamed the cuts on the UK Government’s Autumn Statement, which she says undermines the Scottish Government’s ability to deliver public services. However, she now says if any extra money comes Scotland’s way in the UK Government’s spring statement, it will be spent on housing.

Speaking to Holyrood’s finance and public administration committee on Tuesday, Ms Robison said: “It is extremely challenging for the housing budget, taking into account all the other challenges the industry is facing such as inflation. These decisions are not easy ones – it is one of the most difficult decisions.

“If our capital availability changes, this will be a key priority should that become available.”

In the Budget the Government cut the allocation for building new homes from £740m to £375.8m. The decision put the Government’s target to build 110,000 new affordable homes by 2032 in doubt.

However, Ms Robison said the SNP had a “good track record” of building new homes, having delivered 126,000 since coming into power in 2007.

She said the Government has already met 14 per cent of the 110,000 target, but added: “Clearly, there is further to go.” The finance secretary said: “It’s fair to say that the profiling of the target will need to change.

“It’s never a straight road on a target, there are always bumps or peaks and troughs of delivery, and it’s fair to say that I think we’d be looking at back end peaks while we have a very difficult outlook at the moment with capital.

“That might change, but at the moment that’s the outlook in terms of our capital budget reduction. We have to look at alternatives, we can’t rely on public capital.”

Last week Stewart Milne Homes went into liquidation. Harbour Homes in Edinburgh have also stopped building any new developments.

Springfield Properties has stopped developing affordable housing and build-to-rent properties and is selling back some of its land, which it says is down to “inflation and buyer uncertainty”.

During her appearance at Holyrood’s finance committee, Ms Robison reiterated the difficulty she and her ministers faced in trying to set the 2024/25 Budget.

She said: “I said this would be a Budget of difficult decisions and the pressures on the 2024/25 Scottish Budget cannot be overstated. They represent the greatest challenge of any Scottish Government since devolution.

“We continue to manage a wide range of pressures due to volatility from global factors such as Ukraine, inflation, the cost-of-living crisis, and the ongoing legacy of Covid-19.”

Ms Robison said the Scottish Government’s capital spending power had shrunk by 10 per cent in real terms over five years, and they “cannot mitigate every cut the UK Government makes”.